topic Re: command x to search for string in files in SAS Programming

command x to search for string in files

amager — Tue, 22 Jan 2019 11:13:34 GMT

Hi,

How to search for a string in files , i use find or findstr command x but no result.

Anyone have a solution to this ?

options noxwait; 
x " find ""data"" ""path/*.sas"""; 

/*or*/

sysexec(find "data" "path/*.sas");

Thanks .

Re: command x to search for string in files

Oligolas — Tue, 22 Jan 2019 11:36:27 GMT

Hi, is there a particular reason you want to use the x command?

and did you try to search in the Forum?

Re: command x to search for string in files

Kurt_Bremser — Tue, 22 Jan 2019 12:56:05 GMT

Since you are using forward slashes, I take it your SAS runs on a UNIX platform. In that case, the tool of choice is grep:

grep "string" path/*.sas

To retrieve the result in SAS, do this:

filename oscmd pipe 'grep "string" path/*.sas 2>&1';

data found_strings;
infile oscmd truncover;
input found_line $200.;
run;

In case something fails, the 2>&1 will make sure that error messages end up in your dataset in place of the result.

Re: command x to search for string in files

amager — Tue, 22 Jan 2019 13:59:29 GMT

Sorry @Kurt_Bremser , i'ts windows environment : we have just find or findstr choice instead of grep. it's work in a specific repository and not in all the workspaces files .

@Oligolas : i found this solution in https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Procedures/Searching-SAS-files-including-key-words-in-Windows-7/td-p/17896 :

for /r H: %i in (*.sas) do @findstr /i /m "obs=max" "%i"

but to replace H: by my macro-variable environment and var didn't work. i continue my resarch !

Re: command x to search for string in files

FreelanceReinh — Tue, 22 Jan 2019 15:11:09 GMT

Hi @amager,

Here's a simple example that works in my Windows 7 environment: A case-insensitive search for the phrase "proc print" in all *.sas files in directory C:\Temp\SAS. The search results are stored as character strings in dataset WANT.

filename test pipe 'findstr /i/c:"proc print" C:\Temp\SAS\*.sas';

data want;
infile test truncover;
input c $300.;
run;

If there were, e.g., *.sas7bdat files (i.e. SAS datasets) in the same directory, they would be searched as well (annoying Windows "feature").

Re: command x to search for string in files

amager — Wed, 23 Jan 2019 09:25:13 GMT

@FreelanceReinh Thanks for this answer like a said it's work for me but the problem with 'findstr' don't go in recursive to fetch all repository; i don't know way.

Eg. if another file in : "C:\Temp\SAS1\" , didn't go back to fetch this repository. so i go for the second solution :

for /r Z: %i in (*.sas) do @findstr /i /m "data" "%i"

I can run this command in windows cmd , but i can't run it in my SAS environment if a replace it with something like :

filename x pipe 'for /r "&server_sas/" %i in (*.sas) do @findstr /i /m "data" "%i"'

EDIT : it's work prefectly with double quote " " :

filename x pipe "for /r ""&server_sas/"" %i in (*.sas) do @findstr /i /m ""data"" ""%i"" "

Re: command x to search for string in files

FreelanceReinh — Tue, 22 Jan 2019 15:46:25 GMT

Have you tried the /s option of findstr (i.e. search all subfolders, in the below example: subfolders of C:\Temp, and the folder itself)?

findstr /s/i/c:"proc print" C:\Temp\*.sas